Litteraturtips

There are more and more books about forest gardens and related topics. Here I have started to post some of the books that think is inspiring and relevant for our climate. All books are in Stjärnsunds Permakulturbibliotek which is open to the public.

Crawford (2010): Creating a Forest Garden. Working with Nature to Grow Edible Crops
This book is perfect for getting started with your own forest garden. The author is a master at finding the essence of things, and have reduced the description of the forest garden's creative process for what is really needed. More than half the book consists of beautiful, informational plant profiles, rest describes the steps involved in planning, construction and maintenance of a forest garden. This book we use as textbook on our 72-hour forest garden course.

Jacket & Toensmeier (2005): Edible Forest Gardens
Two books belonging to the most penetrating existing in forest garden literature. I enjoyed the books a long time, but only after three years, with my own forest garden, I start to realize the value of them. The authors have thought long and hard about all the issues that may arise in connection with planning, establishment and maintenance of a forest garden. They have even tried to solve the problem that probably will not occur until about maybe 50 years in most forest gardens. For the beginner it can be difficult to sift in the incredible amount of information, but it has worked for a while with forest gardens are these books a must.

Weiss, Sjöberg, Larsson (2016): Perennial vegetables: Discover, Lizard, enjoyThe first book on the cultivation of perennial vegetables in Swedish that I wrote with Annevi Sjöberg and Daniel Larsson. The book presents 60 perennial vegetables and many of them fit well in the forest garden context. Most we have cultivated here in Stjärnsund. A receptdel provide inspiration for how plants can be used in cooking. The book was nominated for the year's garden book 2016 and can be ordered directly from us. It is also available in Bokus and Adlibris.

Crawford (2012): How to grow Perennial Vegetables
A concise and accessible book about perennial vegetables. It contains all plant portraits for a variety of perennial vegetables including details of how they are used in the kitchen. The division provides some information on how to plan and grow perennial vegetables in general. Although the book is written from Martin Crawford sydengelska perspective, a lot of the plants in the book perfectly fine to grow in our climate.

Toensmeier (2007): Perennial Vegetables: From artichoke to zuiki taro
This book of perennial vegetables contain detailed portrait of the 100 various species of perennial vegetables that can be grown in North America. Because there are so many different climate zones in North America are many plants in the book that can not grow in Sweden. Fortunately, there is a map for each plant that shows where on the continent, the plant can grow. Works a plant in the northern United States and southern Canada, we can be fairly confident that it is possible to grow in the Nordic region. A useful book which, however, was a bit more tedious than necessary in places.

Barstow (2014): Around the world in 80 plants
Stephen Barstow's book about perennial vegetables from all corners of the world was a very welcome addition to the literature on this subject when it came out in autumn 2014. The book shows what an enormous knowledge Stephen has accumulated over decades he has cultivated perennial vegetables in his garden outside Trondheim. It is easy to read, entertaining and is more a book in ethnobotany than cultivation. For me, this book was a real eye-opener about the endless possibilities for letting perennial vegetables even bigger part of our food culture.